Eddie Redmayne is doing all he can to keep in shape for his role as the Emcee in “Cabaret” — which includes weekly bouts of “torture.”
“It’s quite full on,” he told the New York Post exclusively at the show’s opening on Saturday.
“There is this amazing man named Greg, who is kind of a genius, body-work human being who punishes me once a week,” the actor, 42, explained. “My wife [Hannah Bagshawe] thinks it’s massage but it’s actually a kind of borderline torture. But it’s keeping me upright!”
The Oscar winner confessed that he also gobbles down “every single sort of lozenge or tea or Chinese medicine.”
He added: “Or anything that anyone tells me is good for your singing voice.”
Redmayne has had plenty of experience playing the legendary role, originated by Joel Grey and then played by Alan Cumming.
He starred in a 2022 West End revival, winning the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, which has now transferred to Broadway.
The “Fantastic Beasts” alum also played the role as a teen and joked that his mum has a video locked away of his performance.
“She’s holding me ransom to it,” he quipped.
“She cannot show anyone,” he went on, adding that taking the role to Broadway has always been “my dream as a kid, to do this, in this city.”
The Kander and Ebb musical, which is set against the rise of the Nazi party in 1930s Berlin, clearly has added layers in the current climate of growing anti-antisemitism.
“What’s extraordinary about ‘Cabaret,’ it was written in the 60s, 20 years after the end of the second World War,” the Tony winner shared with The Post. “It was relevant then, and now it couldn’t be more relevant.
“Yet what’s extraordinary about the piece is that it’s very specific to the moment in history that it happened so you can read it in that way or watch these ripples across generations. Sadly it always seems relevant and that is a testament to the fact that people perhaps are not learning from their mistakes.”
This production, which also stars “Glow” actress Gayle Rankin and Broadway vet Bebe Neuwirth, is not shy about portraying the decadence of the era.
Redmayne chooses to call it “hedonistic and celebratory.”
“It was an amazing moment,” he marveled. “There is a wonderful museum in New York, the Neue [Galerie] Museum that I go to quite often with all the Egon Schiele paintings and Klimt paintings. That’s a wonderful way to get seduced back into this world.”